The last of my aunts and uncles died two weeks ago at the age of 98, but not before passing on some last minute womanly advice to me.

My aunt – I think of her as my Aunt Glamorous – was tall, red-headed, blue-eyed, self-sufficient and cosmopolitan at a time and place when most women in her hometown wanted nothing more than to get married, have babies and put up green beans and blackberry jam. [Read more…]

Things were getting serious. My boyfriend had moved his goldfish into my apartment.

I returned from a long weekend with my parents to find that Jon had moved his dimestore pets from his place on Telegraph Hill into mine on Russian Hill.

He was sheepish about having done this; he knew that I would object.

Jon and Barbara the year that he didn’t pop the question. c 1975 Ruth Newhall

I had my reasons. Jon and I had had a perfectly viable relationship up until then. We had fair fights. We shared the housework. We divided expenses – restaurant tabs and grocery bills – right down the middle.

We liked each other’s friends. And, although Jon did not like Ingmar Bergman and I was not keen on baseball, we stayed calm about these differences and took turns picking out our weekend activities.

Above all, Jon and I were honest with each other. Right down to admitting it when one of us went out with someone else – something that Jon did often in the early days of our relationship, now in its fifth year.

I should have seen the goldfish coming.

Jon had begun eating more and more of his meals at my place, doing more and more of the dishes, showing more and more disappointment if I opted for supper with a female co-worker instead of him. [Read more…]

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ABOUT BARBARA

Barbara Falconer Newhall reports from the scene on life with an unruly garden, techie husband, aging relatives, far-flung, grown-up kids, and a book coming out soon . . . She also likes to read other people's books.

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